Unlike the internal PCI HDTV tuner card, it is a very small external box connecting to PC through the USB 2.0 port. It gets power from the USB 2.0 port too. So no extra power adapter needed. It is a highly portable (the smallest in the world so far) HDTV tuner which is idea for the laptop.

It works on cable channel too. I got over 50 watchable digital channels from Rogers cable. Unfortunately they are all 480i programs (that's why they are free I guess).

Ofcource it can receive the analog channels and works very well.

My suggestion is use a very good outdoor antenna to get the OTA digital channels. With a indoor antenna, in my place, there are only two channels can be received. It is worth to invest over $100 on a top lever antenna like DB8.

4. The recording is incredible. You can record the original transport stream (.tp) and native mpeg format (.mpg). The difference between them is the .tp file contains all sub channels --- for example, D23-1 WIVB-HD and D23-3 WNLO-SD, because they are all channel D23, so when you chose recording them as original transport stream, you'll get both of them in one .tp file!
And also there is an option to let you chose recording current sub channel only.
Native mpeg format in the other hand, contains only current channel's mpge2 data format with original transport rate.
Both of these two recording options will let you can keep the original quanlity!

It also has a utility program can convert these original file to DVD or Dixv format.

5. On no good side, first I think it should has two RF input connectors, one for antenna and one for cable. Otherwise you have to switch them all the time. It's not convenient.
Second, unlike DVICO's PCI tuner, this USB tuner uses Conexant's CX25843 A/V decode chip other than CX28832 + LG's 4th or 5th VSB decode chip. I doubt this CX25843 chip is better? I can not compare them. Any comment on this?

6. Over all, it is a very good HDTV tuner for the laptop. The price is $149, cheaper than On Air USB tuner ($249).

Are you sure the Rogers channels are digital and not analog? I was under the impression that all of the Rogers channels were encrypted and that you wouldn't get any digital channels via cable with a tuner like this until Rogers supports CableCard. People had reporting being able to view PPV channels in the past but that loophole appears to have been terminated.

For this USB HDTV tuner, because it uses the software to decode the stream, so you need a powerful PC. In my 2.0 GHz P-IV CPU, ATI Radeon 7500 with hardware dxva accelerator + 64MB video memory, it eats 50% - 80% CPUs to show 1080i programs. And you can not do anything else. If you are openning other program like internet explorer, the video and sound will stute at that time.
It has its own software decoder so no other decoder to be need.

Have anybody tried this type of tuner to receive HD channels from the air in the Ottawa region? An from the Videotron cable? I might be interrested by this device but I'd like to know if I can receive something in my region...

I also have the same tuner, bought it in dec/05 from www.snapstream.com to complete my PVR solution. it was 149 USD and came with a silver sensor indoor antenna for free. With the indoor antenna I can pickup 4 HDTV stations with 85-100% signal, I can't seem to pick up CityTVHD, due to the lower power and my location, Brampton N of Highway 7/Queen and West of highway 50 (Albion) I can also confirm you can pickup some unencrypted QAM signals from rogers cable, but I use it strickly for OTA HDTV reception. I use it with the BeyondTV PVR software and another tuner for rogers cableTV signals and it works great. It does require a very powerful PC for HDTV playback, recording HDTV uses almost no CPU at all. My AMD 2600+ struggles with playback if anything else is running as well. A newer video card than the ati 7000 32 meg card would help, but I don't have the cash right now..

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